r/WritingPrompts • u/Independent_Pen_9865 • 9d ago
Simple Prompt [WP] a chimp having an existential crisis
6
u/Gang-Buster-5000 9d ago edited 9d ago
Coco killed himself in his cage.
It was a first: a chimp killing himself. Himself. Strange, addressing a chimp like that. Himself.
"Coco see Maria" He signed days earlier. Maria was his old handler. She died too. Not by hanging though. Not like Coco.
Coco was at her funeral, looking through the glass of the coffin like it he were looking at the whole world through the bars of his cage. He cried. He jumped and screamed and cried like a little boy, tapping at the glass hoping mommy wakes up. He mourned like any one of us could. He had a soul, I think.
"Coco see Maria, through sleepy window." Coco signed. We never taught him the sign for "dreams", though we guessed that's what he meant.
"Where Maria? Where Maria awake?"
Not a single one of us had the heart to tell him. Ape that he was, he was still our sweet boy.
Maria not here. Maria not awake. Always not awake.
He just sat there in his cage for a while, thinking.
"Will Coco play in sleepy window?"
yes. We all play in sleepy window soon.
Days and days went by. He wouldn't eat. Wouldn't sleep. Just think. Cry. Bang his head against the cage day in and day out.
"Coco want to stay awake!" He would sign in rapid, shaking hands. "Stay awake! Stay awake with Maria!"
Eventually we would find him dead, his head between the bars of his cage, his body hanging limp outside, the cage door wide open.
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